Now will patriotic Brits get Dame Vera’s version to No1?
THE BBC could be forced to play Land of Hope and Glory properly after all – thanks to a campaign to get the song to number one.
The switch to an instrumental version for the Last Night of the Proms has prompted a social media drive to back a recording by Dame Vera Lynn, who died in June aged 103.
The campaign was launched by a group called Defund the BBC, which states that its main goal is to decriminalise failure to pay the licence fee.
The group urged those upset with the Proms decision to download Dame Vera’s version, tweeting yesterday: ‘Let’s get Land of Hope and Glory to No 1 in the charts and make the BBC play it... the words the BBC really don’t want you to hear, sung by Dame Vera Lynn.’
Those backing the appeal include actor Laurence Fox, who called the decision to drop the lyrics from Edward Elgar’s composition ‘shameful’.
He wrote online: ‘Would the BBC then have to play it? What a beautiful day that would be.’
By last night the song had already shot to number one in Apple’s charts for its own music services.
The UK’s top-selling songs are typically played in full during BBC Radio 1’s chart show – now broadcast on Fridays – although there have been exceptions. A social media campaign to get Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead to the top of the charts following the death of Margaret Thatcher in 2003 saw the song from The Wizard of Oz reach number two. The BBC declined to play the track in full, however, instead offering an explanation from a reporter stating why it had been so successful. Dame Vera remains the oldest artist ever to land an album in the top 40.
In April Captain Tom Moore, then 99, became the oldest ever singer to get a number one single after covering You’ll Never Walk Alone.
A Songs of Praise producer has compared Rule Britannia’s lyrics to neo-Nazis singing about the Holocaust.
Cat Lewis tweeted: ‘Do those Brits who believe it’s ok to sing an 18th Century song about never being enslaved... also believe it’s appropriate for neoNazis to shout “We will never be forced into a gas chamber”.’
Anti-Semitism campaigner Jonathan Sacerdoti called the comparison ‘outrageous’.
‘Make them play it’